Instead of throwing away the above troughs that I made for my MA degree show I decided to, with the help of my Granddad and his workshop, turn them into coffee tables!

Having come up with a design the first thing to do was create a higher base for the tiles so that the edge wasn’t too deep. Easily done with Granddad’s tools!

Then we attached the hairpin legs that I bought from Wicked Hairpins. I went for the three rod leg because I thought that the wooden trough with the tiles would be heavy and so the extra support was a safe bet.

The next step was to layout and stick down the tiles to either side of the coffee table. It took ages to find these tiles. I wanted a specific colour and style of pattern similar to that seen on the buildings in Portugal. These ones are from Milagros a Mexican shop that sells a range of handmade tiles and other goods.

The first idea for the table was that it would be the tiles and then a strip of grout… not the best idea as it seems. Having grouted the table (above image) we left it dry and it cracked – so back to the drawing board.

After another indecisive gap I decided on these little mosaic tiles from a local bathroom store. This worked so much better than the grout. So then the table was pretty much done just needed to paint it. In the design the centre section is to be filled with succulents. It has been left empty for now in case it needs to be transported anywhere.

And here’s the final piece!

It had its ups and down but I got there in the end. I also have the materials to make another one which will hopefully wont take as long to make as this one did! Huge thanks to Granddad and his patience with my unexpectedly difficult design.